BAGHDAD, June 17: A powerful car bomb exploded in a crowded market area of Baghdad on Tuesday, killing 51 people and wounding 75, in the biggest attack in the Iraqi capital in months.

The bomb blew up near the main market in the predominantly Shi’ite neighbourhood of al-Hurriya in north-western Baghdad, police said. It left a heap of smoking and mangled wreckage.

Before the blast, the market would have been packed with late-afternoon shoppers buying food before returning home.

Police said 51 people were killed and 75 were wounded, including women and children.

The blast set fire to about 20 shops and levelled a multi-storey building, a security source said. Many vehicles were damaged by the blast, which cut off electricity to the area.

Ambulances raced back and forth taking casualties to nearby hospitals.

US officials blamed Al Qaeda insurgents for many of the huge car bombs that regularly hit Baghdad in 2006 and 2007, at the height of sectarian conflict in Iraq.

But the capital has been relatively quiet since a May 10 truce ended weeks of fighting between Iraqi security forces and militants loyal to anti-US cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.—Reuters